Yukina
by sh4mesh4me
Summary: In one instant, Hiei sacrifices every single thing he has ever known to save the one that is most important.
1. On the Inside

Are you as excited about the disclaimer as I am? You should be. _Yu Yu Hakusho _and all related characters, settings, and plotlines do not belong to me.

**Yukina**

**Chapter 1: On the Inside**

I love my sister. She playing in the snow right now—her favourite activity. I love to watch her laughing. They're all laughing, except for me. They're all playing in the snow outside the temple in the woods, except for me.

I don't like to play in the snow. I don't like to _play_. Not as much as my sister does, anyway. I actually don't like much of anything at all, according to the others, and I apparently love nothing at all. But they're all wrong. I love nothing at all, except for her. Things like fun and happiness sometimes have to be sacrificed for something more important. Not everyone can understand that, can understand how hard it is to ignore the pangs I feel in my chest every time I have to force myself to remain aloof, and stand to the side again, just like every time, and just like I know I have to.

Snow irks me, though. I can have no patience for its tendency to get in my eyes when it could be crucial to see something.

My sister turns and smiles at me from a burrow of white powder. She has just made a snow angel, and the annoying powdery stuff is scattered all over her kimono. Her face is a constant display of beautiful, naive innocence, perfect and sweet. Simple moments when she is shivering slightly with a red nose and cheeks and a pile of snow plopped on top of her head make her happy.

And in a moment, she can make me change my mind. Just for her, snow _does_ make me happy.

I want to smile back at her, but I don't. Just as I can never do. Smiling is not my way, it makes no difference for whom I would smile. Instead I tilt my head slightly to the side, acknowledging her friendly gesture.

But on the inside, I am always smiling back.

I continue to watch her for some hours, though it seems as if only minutes have passed. But there is no denying the darkening sky, and everyone who has been playing in the snow is now wearing clothes that are almost entirely soaked through.

And now that the sun has fully set everyone goes inside. But not her. My sister wants to stay outside just a little longer.

She looks up at the sky, and little snow flurries fall onto her upturned face. My eyes follow her as she smiles sadly, wistfully. I like her happy smiles better.

The little girl in the snow finally turns around to see the one who I alone, and never she, can know to be her only living kin. She gives me another heart-breaking smile.

And I smile back, on the inside.

I start, as suddenly I become aware that there is _something_ behind my sister. A man...a giant, hulking man towering behind my petite little sister.

No...this _creature_ is far too big and too ugly to be something as easily dealt with as a man.

And then, before even I can react, the thing grabs my sister, wrapping one hideous arm about her waist and clapping its other hand over her mouth. I want to retch as it lifts her off the ground and my heart plummets to my stomach. My sister's dark red eyes widen in panic, helpless and confused. And though I cannot see her mouth, I know it no longer wears the smile I cannot return.

The beast speaks before fleeing faster than I have ever seen anyone, save myself, go. My eyes widen to mirror my sister's.

"Heh heh heh," it cackles. The thing's voice is low and raspy. "An eye for an eye, and a sister for a sister."

It jumps backwards into the foliage, taking my sister with it.

It suddenly registers that they are gone. The thing is gone, and my sister is gone. And I have never wanted to kill anything so badly in my entire life. I snarl and sprint after the creature.

I am lost the second I enter the forest. Only now do I realize what should have been clear to me from the moment that creature was somehow able to sneak up on us and snatch my sister away from me. This thing is untrackable. It cannot have been born. Only such a thing, such a doll, could have been created, making it very nearly impossible to find.

I am left with no choice but to resign myself to the use of my other, duller senses to hunt down this demon. And now, when I need time on my side more than I ever have, I feel as crippled and scared as my sister must.

I know I have made many enemies in the past, and it has always been blindingly obvious that many of these enemies are vengeance-seeking. The power, resources, and drive to effectively track down and abduct the one person most precious to me, though, I would not have ever attributed to any one being. The only ones I have ever trusted with this dangerous secret I had truly believed would not betray me...

I was a fool.

It is quickly becoming too dark to see clearly. I have never been more grateful that I was not born a human with their muted senses.

Suddenly, a familiar and powerful stench assaults my nose. The horrible reek of blood, accompanied by the sickening feeling of rising terror, nearly knocks me over.

And on the inside, I am very afraid.

I run.

My feet move, and that is all I know. I am not conscious of how long or how fast. All that I can focus on is the realization that _I_'_m not running fast enough_, and that when I finally break out from the cover of the dark forest it has been too, too long since I first caught the scent of the life-sustaining fluid.

I smell sea water along with the ever-present stench of blood and wince, already knowing what I will find when I peer ahead.

The thing is standing a few yards in front of me, standing atop a rocky ledge. It is holding a bundle in one hand, outstretched before it.

The bundle moves, and the thing drops it.

I squint to see it, but my intuition has identified my sister before my eyes can.

She is bleeding. There is blood everywhere. There is a bloodied rock lying at the monster's feet, and only the blind would not be able to make the connection between _it_ and the profusely bleeding wound on the left side of my sister's head.

Her clothes are slashed down one side and blood stains the blue fabric. One arm has been snapped completely backward, and a bit of white bone peeks out at the front of the elbow. I gag as the ripped-open flap of my sister's kimono shifts in the wind and I catch sight of a deep gash vicously torn across her chest and down to her stomach. She is lying in a fast-spreading pool of red, and a rivulet trickles down to my sister's foot, which has been mutilated beyond repair. My eyes ghost over the blood-flecked aquamarine hair, torn loose from its crystal tie, the pieces of which lie shattered a few feet away, as they travel inevitably back, as if pulled magnetically, to my sister's face.

I see red.

What is by far the worst of the carnage is a long slash that travels from my frightened sister's right temple across her eye down to her chin. Her bottom lip wobbles and my heart beats faster than I thought possible as my eyes lock with hers, wide and scared...the right one bleeding...ruptured.

She blinks and winces. A river of blood streams from her eye and her head, soaking her hair. The pretty blue-green tresses are now crusted over with dried blood, turning its natural sea green coloration to a strange brown, red, and blue collage.

Her right cheek is covered in blood. It is running into her mouth and down her chin onto her clothes. She coughs and a bit of blood comes up, barely distinguishable from the rest of the flood gushing from her small form.

She looks dazed and confused, and I judge that she was probably concussed by the blow to her head.

I am frozen. My mind is screaming for my feet to rush forward and rescue my maimed sibling, but my legs refuse to lift. I can only gaze in sheer horror at the girl who I can hardly force myself to accept as my sister. This girl cannot be the pretty young innocent who was laughing in the snow only minutes...hours...ago. It isn't. It _can't_ be.

I am frozen, my mind is screaming, I am still not moving, because my eyes are trained on hers. I cannot tear them away from the large, wide, once-perfect eyes straining, though unfocused, to hold my gaze.

But her eyes still match.

I cannot believe how remarkably identical to blood red the colouring of my sister's remaining, intact iris is. I have only ever thought of my sister's eyes as ruby red, rose red, never _ever _blood red. I never connected any part of my sister to anything spelling such calamity. I never had reason to.

But now when one eye is red, and the other is red, I cannot make myself blind to the fact that both my sister's eyes were always the colour of blood.

The colour of _mine_.

And before I can convince my legs to move, the thing grabs my sister's hair and lifts her into the air. She does not cry out, but the black and blue bruises around her neck suggest that her windpipe is crushed, that she _can't _cry out.

I look, dazed, beyond the creature to see the source of the salty smell and rage courses hot through my veins.

The ocean.

It gleams at me, twinkling in the moonlight that comes down in isolated shafts from between the clouds. I lift my head, blinking slowly, as if waking from a dream to watch the thing shaking my sister, lying limp in it's huge fingers. It is smiling.

"An eye for an eye..."

It flings the bundle—my tiny, scared sister—out into the open air.

And in a single moment my every thought empties from my mind to be centered on one conscious realization:

_It **dropped **her._

_It dropped my **sister**._

"And a sister..."

I see her for a split moment. Scared and crying and bleeding and dying and hoping.

And I know what desperate hope she clings to...

She is hoping...hoping that I can save her.

The blood pounding in my head freezes in raw terror.

_My **sister**..._

Without a second thought, I tear across the ground and take a flying leap, clearing the cliff edge and not stopping to think for a single second.

Only seeing my sister's smiling face...

On the inside.

"For a sister..."

I hurtle through the air towards the water glinting at me and my sister falling ever faster away...and I open my mouth in a silent gasp as I see her crash to the sharp, jagged rocks below.

I am forced to watch, unable to tear my eyes away, as she slams onto two rocky surfaces, one after the other, before falling with a splash into the water. The disrupted surface turns red with her blood.

I look down and see a rocky outcropping. In less than a second, I know I can land on it and from there dive into the rapidly spreading crimson puddle...from the heart of which I can rescue my broken sister.

But never did it cross my mind that my sister's mutilated body would float to the top of the sea of blood...captivating my attention in the moment I would most need it.

My world abruptly comes to a screeching halt as I smash headfirst into the ledge I was supposed to land on.


	2. Something

**Yukina**

**Chapter 2: Something**

I open my eyes.

And cringe.

My head is splitting open and I do not recognize this place.

I sit up straight and there is a sharp, intense flash of pain behind my eyes. I cry out and quickly, as if remembering a need for silence, clap my hand over my mouth. I squeeze my eyes shut and rock back and forth, willing the pain to go away.

Once the ache has subsided a bit, leaving only a persistent throbbing, I ease myself back down to wait. For what, I have no idea. I glance around the room, checking for signs of life, lurking ninja fighters, a magical pain relieving pill...before realizing that it hurts my eyes, and that the room stubbornly remains unfamiliar.

My ears pick up the soft tapping of approaching footsteps. I quickly close my eyes and flop down on the pallet beneath me.

Then the door creaks open and the sound of someone walking into the room pounds softly in my aching head.

The person walks into the room very close to me, and I almost flinch when he...she...it brushes some strands of hair off of my forehead. I feel the coolness of a wet cloth against my skin and suppress a shiver before the anonymous footsteps retreat from the room and shut the door.

I wait a few seconds.

And my eyes snap open.

I stand up, pushing the quilt someone has placed ontop of me away, ignoring the pain in my head. The room is simple. There is a small window with birdsong and sunshine pouring through, and the room is empty save the thin mattress I am standing on and a small heater beside it.

Where the hell am I?

I choose not to dwell on this disquieting thought, however, and walk over to the sliding door, pushing it open.

I step barefoot onto the smooth floorboards, and an overwhelming feeling of tranquility suddenly washes over me. I feel very empty and possessed of nothing but a desire to wander. The fact that I do not know where I am is small and insignificant.

The doorway opens into the middle of a corridor, and I arbitrarily pick to go to the right.

I walk along, thinking of nothing really, until I finally decide this hall is too damn long for it's own good. I turn and punch a hole in the wall, hoping that there will be something interesting on the other side. There is not. Just an empty black space with a perceptible wall behind the one I just put my fist through.

After that strangely draining experience, I begin to plod on aimlessly down the hall...until I see someone up ahead turn a corner, notice my presence, and come rushing toward me.

My eyebrows fly up and I take a cautious step backward. If this person attacks me, I'm dead.

Damn. I thought this place was, at the very least, ninja-free.

"Hiei! Hiei, are you ok?" what is rapidly becoming recognizable as a boy shouts.

I twist to look over my shoulder. The hall stretches on and fades into empty darkness behind me.

So this stranger seems concerned about me...not a bad thing, I think that rules him out as a ninja.

On the other hand, why wouldn't I be all right?

The stranger stops in front me, and because of my size—which I realize, to my great chagrin, is embarrasingly small—I have to crane my neck a little to look him in the eyes. He has very—there is no other word for it—pretty, green eyes.

I take another step back. Away from the stranger. Pretty eyes do not a friend make. I remind myself that I've never seen this green-eyed boy before, and that looks can be _very_ deceiving. Though he _seems_ to care about me, it may only seem that way. I begrudgingly acknowledge that there could be any number of reasons someone might require my body intact.

"Hiei…why are you awake? I was just in your room and you were sleeping."

So this is the towel-boy who checked on me.

I suddenly want desperately to befriend him. The desire to know where I am hits me full-force in the presence of someone who can tell me.

I start, astonished at the sudden realization that I don't know my own name.

It only takes a minute to calm down, though, once I recall that it must be 'Hiei' as towel-boy called me by that name. This is a comforting thought, and I cling to the information as I struggle to get out words.

"I woke up," I finally choke out, blinking confusedly up at the taller boy. I find myself absolutely loathing my confusion.

Confusion is crippling, and it forces me to limit my actions. I can't ask him where I am. What if he is really an enemy? He might trick me in an instant into following him somewhere...unpleasant.

The green-eyed boy blinks too, and then begins to question me on my physical state. He asks if I am all right...again.

"Yes," I reply simply, and wondering distractedly why I wouldn't be.

Did something...happen to me?

I scoff at my own foolishness. Of course something happened to me! Any idiot should be able to remember their own name and identify their surroundings without help!

I toss a furtive glance back towards the eerie, unlit hallway and begins to get uncomfortable and fidgety. I wish he would tell me _his_ name. Maybe I'd recognize him then. It would put us on even footing, at least. Evener footing. Whatever.

"So Genkai's healing really is as effective as she claimed," the green-eyed boy mumbles, unknowingly causing the feelings of agitation stirrring within me to grow, even though the situation itself doesn't seem particularly annoying. The frustation of not being able to recollect anything at all is taxing.

My inner monologue suddenly explodes into frenzied ranting. This boy is completely useless! Muttering retarded phrases that mean nothing to me... I want to know what the hell is going on! I'm completely shut out of the world this moron lives in... I feel like a cripple!

He understands what is happening, what has happened, and I do not. I realize with horror that within seconds anything could feasibly happen. Fire, flood, enemy attack...ninjas...and I would be powerless to react, not knowing how.

...And I can't rely on this idiot, who seems incapable of even introducing himself.

"Who _are_ you?" I bite out with a scowl on my face. I see no point, finally, in beating it around the bush. If he is going to attack me, he may as well. I'll demonstrate my obliviousness sooner or later. Better do it now, before he calls for backup.

"...Hiei?" he asks in disbelief, confusing me even more. The least he could do is say _his_ name, instead of repeating what can only be mine.

But he says nothing more. He is clearly more of an idiot than I originally figured him for. At least now there is less reason to fear him, unless he is an enemy lackey.

"Hiei...it's me, Kurama. I'm your...friend. Don't you... You don't know me?"

No...

Kurama. That name seems vaguely familiar. The blurry red-haired image I have of the name fits the boy before me, but I've never seen the redhead before.

I think I've made it pretty obvious I don't know him...what's wrong with this fool?

And yet I sense something. A warped, demonic energy, swirls around this boy, without which I could have safely attributed the brain capacity of a human to this...demon?

And as for being my friend...I can't remember ever having a friend, an unsettling thought in itself.

"Hiei...please tell me you're joking." The redhead does not wait for my assurance that I am, in fact, perfectly serious before slapping a wry, weak sort of grin on his face and saying bitterly, "Oh no, wait...you never were the joking type."

I say nothing and turn away from 'Kurama.' He's not helping this at all. In fact, he's making it worse.

He's making me angry and worried...that there's something I should know. Something...

But what?


	3. My Friend

**Yukina**

**Chapter 3: My Friend**

I'm still in the process of working out all the implications of what I've just been told when I hear Kurama rush at me without warning.

My eyes narrow, and I whip around to face my attacker. Still, I know that realistically I am powerless to do little more than raise a hand in defense.

Crap.

I brace myself for the force of a blow, and curse myself for believing an idiotic façade.

So I am understandably stunned when, instead of a punch in the stomach or a blow to the back of the head, I find myself enfolded into a gentle..._hug._

I look down, as my 'attacker' collapses to his knees, dragging his arms down by sides to settle around my waist as he buries his face in the coarse, black material of my threadbare shirt.

I blink, trying to comprehend what the _hell _is going on. My mind registers a spreading wetness where the flaming red head is pressed into his stomach.

My eyes widen.

He's...he's crying? What the hell?

"Wha...what...?" It's hard to form a complete sentence. Stupid demonic human. Why must he confuse me so?

I raise my hand and place it on the soft hair, my cheeks bursting into flame as I awkwardly pat my...friend on the head and contort my face into a grimace. I am _not_ good at this. I can't remember ever trying to placate someone else...or being comforted either, come to think of it. Actually…

My eyes widen even more, darting back and forth, as I search my mind frantically for a shred of a past, any past at all...

And finding, to my horror and confusion, that there is _nothing._

Not only do I have no memories of comforting another person or being comforted...

I have no memories _at all_.

Really, not knowing my own name should have tipped me off. My arms drop to hang limply at my sides as I stare blankly off into space, poring over every aspect of the contents of my brain.

But there is absolutely _nothing_. No matter how franticly I peruse my thoughts, there remains _nothing_. My mind, I finally grasp with shocking clarity, is _empty_.

I begin to hyperventilate.

There should be _something_. _Anything_.

But there _isn't._

The unabashedly sobbing boy doesn't seem to notice the loss of the 'reassuring' hand, doesn't seem to notice my sharp intakes of breath or my heaving chest as a muffled scream tears itself from his throat. "Hiei! WHY...? Why don't you remember me...? It's—" His voice cracks, and his sentence is cut off by a strangled sort of gasp.

He gulps and continues. "It's...it's not _fair!_ ..._Why_?" He whispers his question, and it is clear he is not asking me.

He stands up and wipes his eyes with the back of his hands, still unaware of how my breaths come in shallow, quick, little hitches.

Then, without any warning, he clamps his hands onto my shoulders, hard, and I cease my panic attack.

And then, without any warning, he starts shaking me violently and without restraint back and forth.

And then he is screaming at me, and I can see that he's trying to hold back more tears already glistening warningly at the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill over. His eyes, closed tight, are giving him away.

I forget about the haze of vacancy I am shrouded in as Kurama shouts, "Damn it, Hiei, WHY? Why did this have to happen to ME? Where do you get off doing this to me? Why did you have to go and—"

But whatever it is that I 'had to go and do,' I do not find out, because at this point another boy comes jogging up to us yelling, "Kurama! Kuraaamaaaa!"

Ugh...he has such a loud voice. I wish he'd shut up. I'm beginning to get a headache. I must be getting a migraine from prolonged exposure to morons. Or repetetive shaking.

Kurama freezes and removes his hands from my shoulders. I am still, immobile, trying to keep up with whatever is going on for at least thirty seconds.

It's insulting and unfair that they should have such an infinitely better grasp of the situation than I do.

I have to struggle to maintain new information as it is thrown at him. I look to Kurama, my salvation in the face of the fresh unknown. He is my only stable memory...

A memory created, pathetically, less than five minutes ago.

Kurama...I must not forget these things like the sound of his voice or the vice-like grip of his hands.

"Kurama, what are you _doing_?" the other boy is asking.

I, unfortunately, cannot discern whether the new boy is referring to the redhead's rude invasion of my personal space or...maybe Kurama was supposed to be actually _doing_ something?

I wouldn't put it past him to forget whatever purpose he originally had.

"Hey Hiei, you feeling any better?" The newcomer finally notices me, and claps a hand on my shoulder as he reaches us. My shoulders are taking a lot of abuse today.

He looks at me with strange mixture of emotions displayed in the relieved slump of his shoulders and the furrowing his eyebrows in confusion or...pity?

Pity worries me.

I turn to the boy as my conscious mind remembers that I have just been asked, for the third time, if I am ok.

Why will no one tell what is 'wrong' with me? I can't possibly tell them that everything is just peachy keen if I don't have a clue if there is actually something wrong!

And it unfortunately seems that this boy is, like Kurama, incapable of stating his name and relation to me.

The need to know what is so horribly wrong is eating me alive. It's my memory, obviously. These people are all acting as if they _know_ me. And I know that there is something I am not being told.

Why...why don't I know them?

Why can't I _remember_ anything?

"Who are you?" I ask the stranger with a bored expression on my face, meant to hide any trace of the turmoil raging in my head. The boy simply blinks.

What, am I speaking _Chinese_? It's actually funny, in a way, that I remember how to speak at all.

I start walking away from the two gaping fools, praying for there to be _someone, somewhere_ in this place who can tell me where I am.

Unfortunately, I am only allowed to get about three paces away before the boy yells, "Hiei, where are you going?"

I favor the boy-who-has-no-name with a lovely view of my back as I continue to walk away from him.

How long IS this hall anyway?

I have to keep my mind occupied. Otherwise I'll start panicking again.

Just as I recognize this vital necessity, any thoughts forming in my head are jarred out by the unexpected feel of a hand on my shoulder.

"Hiei." I start at the heavy, serious voice that has an overly-controlled edge to it.

I turn around. "What?"

What was meant to be a heart-stopping glare falls flat as I am startled to see that though Kurama is looking at me with a smile on his face, his eyes are brimming with tears.

"Hiei..."

A lone tear rolls down his cheek. I resist the urge to wipe it away, and for just a second the image of a boy crosses through my vision. The boy's beautiful green eyes are wide and glistening with pent-up anguish. As a tear rolls down his face a small, ghostly, hand reaches up to cup his cheek and brush away the tear, smearing a wet track across his face.

But then the vision dissipates and I shake my head to clear away what in a second Irealize was a memory.

Frantically, I scrunch up my face in a futile effort to remember the brief apparition. But it is like water, quickly slipping away no matter how hard I try to hold on. Still I try in vain to scrape up the last remains of the illusion, but inevitably I am left with nothing...only one determined conclusion.

The now-forgotten memory has left me with a sense of who the boy is whose crying face is so close I could reach out and touch it.

I _knew_ this boy...I knew him, and he was important to me.

Kurama was telling the truth...he really is my friend.

"Hiei," he starts again, acting as if the tear is nonexistent. He then asks me a simple question. Kindly, and still with that ridiculously fake smile plastered onto his face.

"You…you can't remember _anything_, can you?"


	4. Caged

**Yukina**

**Chapter 4: Caged**

_"You…you can't remember **anything,** can you?"_

The words echo through the empty chasm of my mind over and over again like a macabre, horrifying song.

Because I _can't_.

The panic returns full blast. My eyes widen and I blink them rapidly to keep from crying. That I cannot remember ever crying, just as I cannot remember having any friends even though I know Kurama was mine, makes the yearning to do _something—_to cry, to scream—even greater.

The burning desire to express the utter _helplessness..._the frustration boiling inside of me, tears me apart. But I can't do anything. Nothing I could possibly do would be enough to make them understand. Nothing could make them feel what I do.

I bite my lip, emotion bubbling within me, the most pained expression I can muster on my face.

I squeeze my eyes closed and open them again...I am enraged by the prick of wetness at their corners. I think of doing something..._anything_ to try to release my frustration. I am imprisoned by my own physicality. I cannot implode, or evaporate, or even rip my own hair out. I want to scream and scream and scream and scream until I collapse, but it wouldn't be enough. I am limited, and I feel like I am going to explode. The fierce desire to burst into flame and burn everything around me to ashes nearly blinds me with its force.

"Hey. Kurama. His energy...it's...er...spiking. It's—" the boy starts, but Kurama cuts him off with a yell, his eyes widening.

"No! Hiei! Please! Get a hold of yourself! I'm sorry! I'm sorry I'm so sorry! Just please _don't!"_ He kneels down like he did mere moments ago, and I tense, waiting for the embrace.

But it doesn't come. Instead, Kurama puts both his hands on my waist and looks up at me with a pleading sort of expression on his face. It's almost as if he thinks to brace me, while at the same time begging me for something I have no idea how to give him.

I can't give him forgiveness for making something clear that I should have seen myself.

"Please Hiei! Stop!" he screams.

Why must he scream? He is three inches away from me. But I hear a dull, roaring noise coming from...everywhere that does make it difficult to hear what he's saying.

"Stop it Hiei!"

But I'm not doing anything...

The temperature in the room flares up, and I know it's not a fever or anything so normal as that, because I can see droplets of sweat beading on Kurama's forehead.

And that is when I realize...he can feel it too.

Kurama can feel what I feel.

I suddenly feel a lot better. A lot calmer.

He screams the screams that I think will never be powerful enough to release the blocked feeling inside me. He cries the tears I instictively cannot allow myself to.

And yet...it is not enough. Not from me, and not from him. Nothing can quell the anger and frustration roiling within me. Nothing can break me out of the oblivious haze I am trapped in.

Nothing can bring me back. Nothing. I am trapped inside my own ignorance. I am blinded, deaf, mute...

And it's getting hotter.

"_NO!_ Please don't! Stop it Hiei! Stop it!" The redhead is screaming his lungs out now. And I cannot understand why. I'm not doing anything, I'm just getting more and more confused and more and more frustrated.

And it just keeps getting hotter. But...it doesn't bother me. Not really.

"Kurama! We have to get out of here! He's gonna burn down the whole temple!" the other boy screams.

I'm in a temple. Finally, I am in a temple. Not just a long dark hallway that stretches on forever.

The boy continues to yell. His voice is _really_ loud, even above what I have discovered are roaring flames with no recognizable origin, towering above me on all sides, surrounding all three of us.

"Get _away_ from him!" the boy screams, attempting to drag Kurama away from me. He grabs Kurama's arm and suddenly my vision blurs.

I would pass it off as heat waves, but...

The boy's hand starts shrinking, and his arm becomes clothed in black. I look at his face and see a different boy holding onto Kurama. This boy has black, spiky hair with a white starburst at the front. This boy is at least a foot shorter than Kurama, and is looking down at him with large red eyes.

Then I blink and the red-eyed boy is replaced with this brown-eyed one.

What?

_"KURAMA!"_ The boy yells so loudly that my ears actually pop, probably partly because he screamed _directly_ into my ear. And partly because his voice is naturally impossibly loud.

I can't understand. Why is this happening? My head is spinning...I'm so tired. I just want to lie down.

I want to scream, to cry, to bleed. I can't do it all at once. I can't do any of it, though I desperately want to.

I can't do anything, and I can't fight. I am completely stuck.

I can only dimly register what the other two are saying asmy eyes drop closed.

"Kurama! Leave him! He'll be fine! Remember what he _is_!" the other boy yells.

I feel so distant as the fight in me ebbs away to nothing. The arm that has remained at my waist tightens around me, and another arm joins it. I am floating away. I close my eyes completely and let my legs go slack.

I give up. I just don't care anymore. I don't know anything. Let my mind be blank. Let me sleep.

I don't fall, though. The moment my knees give way, the arms about my waist lift me, and the body they belong to cradles me against its chest.

"No." That is Kurama's voice. But I can barely hear it…the voice is so far away. I strain my ears to hear it. When Kurama speaks, though, his voice is calm, clear, and controlled. It is strong. It shows no sign that only a short while ago he suffered a small mental breakdown. "No, Yusuke. I can't leave him. I don't care what he is. I'm staying." He says this softly, but I hear every word.

"Don't be stupid! Come on!" One of the arms holding me shifts.

Yusuke. That other one... He wants Kurama to leave me, he's pulling him away.

The roaring begins to fade away with my senses. I give myself over to oblivion. I can barely hear what's happening anymore, and I am too exhausted to open my eyes.

"Yusuke…?"

"Don't look at me."

I can hear them perfectly. I crack one eye blearily open, and look at the hall. Both eyes open wide.

There is no fire anywhere. None at all. Only a few black scorch marks every few feet. There is no sign that there was ever a life-threatening inferno here. I look up into the green eyes above me. Kurama is smiling.

"Shhh…" He brings up a finger to his lips. "It's okay, Hiei…everything's all right now…"

The brown-eyed boy starts coughing. It sounds very suspiciously like poorly-suppressed laughter.

Yusuke.

Greased black hair. Brown eyes. Loud. Average height. Another 'loud' for good measure. Kurama's friend.

Maybe he is my friend, too?

Hn. No. Probably not.

I close my eyes again. And the voices start to get distant.

_"Should we…Genkai…?"_

_"…'s alright, I can…"_

_"No…we should…"_

_"I…suppose you're…"_

_"C'mon…ama…"_

_"Wait…moment…fallen asleep…"_

_"…going…carry…?"_

_"Yes…"_

And then I can't hear the voices anymore.

And Kurama smells nice.


	5. Vermilion

**Yukina**

**Chapter 5: Vermilion**

I hear voices…

_"What…supposed…tell him?"_

_"…make…thing up…"_

_"…do that! …was his…!"_

_"…better this way… Trust me."_

_"Why…it have to be…way?"_

_"…couldn't save… I'm so… so… sorry…"_

_"…may be…only chance…he has…remember…"_

_"…too bad…can't tell…matter what…"_

_"…we tell…then…?"_

_"Nothing…maybe…won't ask…"_

_"Let's hope…"_

_"Yes…"_

…Which are not in my head.

I snap my eyes wide open not that I realize the voices are _not_ a figment of my sleeping mind. I sit upright and whirl around to face the sounds, expecting to see…I don't know. What _was_ I expecting to see?

What was I expecting to see that got my heart pounding so fast? I don't know. I felt threatened. Uncomfortable that I had been sleeping while there were others who were alert in the same room as I.

I narrow my eyes, and my hand flies to my belt. I grasp at nothing. I don't even know what I thought would be there. It seemed like the right thing to do. It was an instinct.

I growl and snap my head to the left, where the beings the voices belong to are, and suddenly my head feels as if it is about to explode. Blood pounds in my skull—like something is mashing viciously away inside my skull with a mallet—before it stops. All that is left is a dull sort of throbbing. I must have sat up too quickly.

"Hiei! You're awake!" says the too-loud voice I've recently acquainted myself with. It is 'Yusuke.'

Oh no…now I remember.

The fire and yelling and frustration and screaming and screaming and screaming and scream—

"Hiei, are you alright?" I am jarred out of my thoughts by a soft voice. I slowly turn my head a fraction of an inch to the right and see a head of vibrant red hair.

Kurama.

I feel my pulse go down, and the throbbing in my eardrums slows. I am calm.

Well, not exactly, but there is something comforting about the redhead's presence. Maybe it is the way he speaks softly even when I am about to break down, creating the false illusion that everything is all right. That everything will be ok.

"Hiei…?" Oh, right. He asked me a question. I can't remember what it was though.

I can't remember. Just not being able to recall that small thing has brought the rhythm of the pounding in my ears straight back up.

What is _wrong_ with me? _Why can't I **remember?**_

I am distantly aware that my breathing has become erratic. I can hear it. 'Calm down!' I shout mentally at myself. But I am not responding. I can't make myself calm! I can't stop it!

The heat…swirling vapors of flame around me…NO! Why can't I control it!

Why is this happening to me!

Luckily, it seems Kurama, at least, has prepared for this—whatever 'this' is—in advance. He practically launches himself off the mat he had been sitting on. He had been talking to a few other people who are currently sitting immobile in their seats, open-mouthed, gaping at me. He runs straight through the flames that have suddenly sprung up around me, and grabs the hair at the back of my head. He kneels, and pulls me half-onto his lap, preventing me from moving.

"Hiei! Open your mouth!" he commands. I willing comply. I am beginning to rethink my earlier assumption…that Kurama is stupid. Because as he runs a hand through his hair, withdrawing four seeds, it seems like…he is the only one who knows what is going on, and how to deal with it. Like he is the only one who has any control.

And I haven't got any at all.

That is probably why I feel marginally better now, even as I hear roaring flames surging around me and feel acutely the pain of the nothingness in my mind.

He makes a fist, crushing the seeds, and opens his hand above my open mouth. Green powder falls onto my tongue, and it tastes weird…reminiscent of sawdust.

But I swallow it anyway, and the flames turn green, flare once, then disappear.

I feel better, too. The throbbing has ceased. I feel calm. I feel in control. I can _control_ myself. I feel secure enough to open my mouth and say a small portion of what I want to ask.

"How…?"

Kurama releases my hair, bringing his hand around to brush away a few strands of hair that have fallen into my line of vision. Then he smiles at me. But it isn't a happy smile. It is almost…wistful. Sad.

Kurama's face suddenly gets fuzzy, and when I blink, it isn't his face anymore. Instead it is the face of a young girl. She is wearing the same exact smile as Kurama…the same longing expression. She has beautiful, large, red eyes with long lashes, and long blue-green hair, held in place with a crystalline hair ornament. It is the same shade as her eyes.

Her eyes…remind me of someone I've seen before…

My eyes widen as I make the connection. The boy I saw! The one who grabbed Kurama's arm!

Then I blink again and the red eyes turn green, the aquamarine hair coming loose from its tie and turning a brilliant shade of red. Kurama's smile hardens under my gaze. It becomes forced. Fake. He stands, helping me to my feet at the same time. He leads me over to the table and sits me down next to him. No one says anything. Then he turns to me and asks me a question I find so overwhelming, so unanswerable…that I want to collapse. Somehow, though…somehow I am not upset.

"Hiei…what's wrong?"

I say nothing. I am searching for a way to go about answering the question when Kurama answers his own question for me.

"You want to know why you feel _blocked_, correct?"

I gape at him. He phrased exactly what I am feeling in one simple sentence. I nod dumbly.

"Hey," says a boy I have never seen before, yet somehow I already don't like anyway. "Did he…forget words? I mean, can he talk?" The boy has a deep—almost raspy—voice. It sounds…unintelligent.

"I can," I snap, before Kurama has a chance to answer for me. I know he was going to, too. I saw his jaw muscles tense, just like they would if he were about to open his mouth to speak.

They are all staring at me. The stupid-sounding boy is opening and closing his mouth, probably at a loss of what to say. He looks like a dying fish. I turn my head slightly to look Kurama—the only one, for some reason, that I feel I can communicate with—in the eye. I simply stare at him, willing him to read my mind.

_What is going on…?_

Kurama jumps a bit, and opens his mouth to say something. Then he shuts it so quickly I can almost hear his jaws clamp shut. He blinks a few times, and begins to be the only useful person I have seen since I woke up.

"Hiei. You have amnesia." I blink. He _did_ read my mind.

"Does he even know what amnesia is?" asks the dumb boy.

"Of course he does, you idiot! He hasn't forgotten _everything!"_ yells a girl with a cigarette in her mouth.

Yusuke laughs. "Yeah, he probably just wants someone to explain it 'cause _he_ doesn't know what it means!"

A girl with large, doe-like eyes then says, "Yusuke, do _you_ know what 'amnesia' means…?"

Yusuke shuts up.

Of course I know what amnesia is. Come to think of it, it's quite possibly the most obvious solution to my predicament in the world. I assume I was just so...upset, that I was not thinking rationally. I cannot believe that I did not realize what was so blatantly obvious that now I want to scream.

"How. Did. This. _Happen?" _I say, anger pouring into every syllable. A blue-haired girl sitting across from me cringes.

"Hiei," says Kurama, still in that same quiet voice, "There is no need to be angry. We're going to _help_ you."

I feel a surge of anger, strangely muted. How can he _possibly_ help? Is he going to find my memories for me? No, I didn't think so.

"I will ask again," I say in a voice that clearly suggests I want to kill something. "How. Did. I. Get. This. Way?" I say it very slowly, deliberately, as if they were very small children that need things to be told to them _slowly_ so that they will understand. Also, this way, I will probably not start screaming my head off.

"Hiei. Calm down. You hit your head. I'm sure that your memories are locked away somewhere in your subconscious, and eventually you _will_ recover them," Kurama explains. Then he smiles at me. It is the same wistful smile that he was wearing before, and for one moment I see red eyes hidden behind his green ones.

The eyes are the same as the girl I saw before…only this time…this time she's crying. And one of her eyes…

On eye is split open…bleeding.

But I blink and Kurama is back. "That is not good enough. I want to know _how_ this happened. People do not _forget_ their entire life from a bump on the head. Tell me why I am this way," I command, trying to push away the disturbing image of the large, red eyes. I glare at everyone around the table, taking a second to memorize each of them as I glance at their faces.

Yusuke, who doesn't look scared at all, merely defiant. The stupid boy, who looks confused and angry. A pretty brunette girl with brown eyes who looks like she _pities_ me. Pity. Huh. Then a blue-haired, pink-eyed girl who looks just about ready to sprint out of the room screaming. I sneer at her, and she visibly pales. Next is an old woman, who looks bored, and finally the girl smoking a cigarette, who is looking at the idiotic boy with an annoyed expression on her face—this girl is all right.

And then there is Kurama, sitting next to me.

It does not escape me that there is another mat at this table. A mat next to the idiotic boy. At a table that looks as if it is a kind of meeting place. I would bet almost anything that someone is missing, and it is not only the empty seat that has tipped me off.

The anguish of loss is thick in the air. I can practically smell it. I don't know why, I'll just put it down to a gut reaction. Something is just so obviously not right. Something is being _hidden_ from me, barely suppressed in their gazes.

Something is missing. Something more than memories.

I can see pity touching the edges of the various stares directed at me, and not just the brown-eyed girl's. They feel sorry for me…and not just for my empty mind. It's just as if...

It's just as if someone's died.

_"…couldn't save… I'm so… so… sorry…"_

My dream…they were talking about someone who had died. Could that have been…?

I feel inclined to ask them about this.

"Somebody's dead, huh?" Nothing that is in me will allow the reaction to this comment pass. Every pair of eyes widens, even the ever-collected Kurama's. They exchange fleeting, harried glances, and Kurama shakes his head. Actually, it's not so much of a shake as it is a quick jerking of the head a fraction of an inch to the right and then a fraction of an inch back.

But it seems everyone gets the message, because they shift uneasily in their seats before returning to their previous concerned staring.

"No, Hiei. No one has died. Why…do you ask?" Kurama says, a smile on his face. This is a fake smile. One put in place for everyone else to see, to make them believe everything is all right.

No. This smile is for me, for my sake, to convince _me_ that everything is all right.

"I can see it," I reply blankly, "In the way you look at me. You pity me."

"Hiei, of course we feel badly for you, you've lost all your—" I cut off the girl who's spoken, the one on whose face the pity is most clearly displayed.

"No." My eyes widen slightly, as blue hair and red eyes fill up my vision. "You look like someone died. You look like you pity me for losing something else…"

_Something **more** than memories… _hangs unspoken in the air.


	6. The Shattered Walls

**Yukina**

**Chapter 6: The Shattered Walls**

I stare around at them all, and not a word is said. I want desperately to know what...or _who_ they are trying to hide. Trying being the key word. And doing an incredibly poor job. They are making themselves almost too obvious. There is definitely something they are hiding from me, but I can see by the stoic expressions that their faces have hardened into that they'll never tell me.

There is no point in questioning them any further.

I stand to leave, and their eyes follow me. I walk out the door and into the hall without anyone saying a single word, and pad along a few feet of the corridor.

Only now do I realize that I have absolutely no idea where I am going. I don't know where the exit is, and I don't even know _where_ in this place I am. I don't even know what this place is. It could be a prison, for all I know, with no chance of me wandering off past the walls. It would explain why they let me leave.

I hate that. I hate the feeling that I might be trapped. I don't care if I have to rip a hole in the wall, I won't be boxed in.

Only...I don't think this is a prison. It doesn't feel like one. It _does_ feel like somewhere I have been before, many times before.

And why aren't I getting more upset about this…? Only a short while ago I was having an anxiety attack from not being able to remember tiny little things. Not knowing _where_ I am is a much bigger deal than not being able to recall some insignificant fact I was once told.

My memory, as if trying to make up for what it severely lacks, supplies me with the image of green powder falling from an open hand, and flames turning green and dissipating.

No…Kurama is definitely _not_ an idiot. That must have been some concoction to relax my mind…but how…?

Then there is the telepathy incident. I suppose he could know me well…_very_ well…

I am looking into this too much. Anyone could probably guess what was running through my mind when he answered the question I had yet to ask.

_What's going on…?_

_"Hiei. You have amnesia."_

He was just telling me what was plain as day. Nothing more.

But his warped, almost…_mixed_ energy…

I whirl around, hearing soft, barely audible footsteps behind me.

Kurama. How predictable.

He says nothing. He only smiles. And once _again_ it is the sad, _pitying_ smile.

But that isn't what bothers me.

What bothers me, what _really_ bothers me, is that every time he smiles like that I see the red-eyed girl instead.

I saw her just now. Only for a moment, but she was definitely there. She bears a striking resemblance to the boy I 'saw' in Yusuke…and the only reason I can pass off _this_ vision as completely meaningless and unimportant…is that the girl was smiling. It was not a happy smile, but it was a smile. She wasn't crying, and both her eyes were whole.

I want to know who she is. She must have been important to me. Why else would my mind keep distorting how I perceive other people to make them look like her?

But I have no more time to think about this anonymous girl. Kurama has finally stopped just staring at me and has begun to speak.

"You don't have any idea where you're going, do you?" His smile transforms into a slightly amused one with just an upward quirk at the corner of his lips

I frown. "Hn," I grudgingly admit. Like hell I'll give him the satisfaction of a 'no.'

Kurama chuckles lightly, despite the scowl on my face. Then he walks up to me and takes my hand, practically _dragging_ me in the direction opposite from the one I had been planning to take.

When we finally reach the open foyer, Kurama lets go of my hand. He steps back in a gesture meant to give me some alone time. I gladly take the chance, and step outside into the bright sunshine.

I squint my eyes, and bring my hand up to my forehead to block the sun's harmful rays. I blink a few times, adjusting to the light change, and continue walking to nowhere. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Kurama step outside, silently watching me from about a hundred yards away. I don't care. All that matters is that I am free. I feel better than I did trapped in dark rooms, and I am sure that I was…that I _am_ the type of person who rarely sets foot indoors.

I keep walking. I like the feel of the soft grass, wet with dew, on my feet…the feel of the warm sun on my back, and the smell of growing, living, breathing things. This is better by _far_ than staying in a dark, cramped temple.

I can see something sparkling a bit farther away. I stare at it, and, unable to determine what it is, I decide to investigate. I walk over to the sparkly thing, and only when I get closer do I realize it is a small pool. Like a pond, only deeper, and much more clear.

There are no algae to speak of, and there are brightly colored fish swimming in its depths. I mentally commend whoever owns this property for their excellent care-taking skills.

I walk to the edge of the pool, and kneel down beside it. I look in, for no real reason other than just out of curiosity. I _am_ exploring, after all.

Only when what I see makes me gasp do I realize that _I don't even know what I look like_.

Or at least, I didn't.

The boy staring wide-eyed up at me is someone I've seen before. I blink, thinking that I am seeing someone other than myself. Believing that the reflection in the pool is merely the whisper of a memory my subconscious struggles to call forth…

I squeeze my eyes shut, and lean over a bit further, so that when my eyes open I can see my reflection…not this facsimile of something that my mind wants so desperately for me to remember.

But when my eyes ease open it is still that same pair of large, red eyes staring up at me.

Two images blast into the focus of my inner eye. The mutilated body of someone I cannot recognize and a little boy whose face is hidden, shaking with silent sobs in the corner of a dark room.

My eyes widen and the boy looks up, his face bloody and his mouth twisted into a demented smirk. The maimed body drops into a mirror-like puddle with a splash. The mirror ripples and shatters, sending shards of glass flying everywhere, skidding across the darkness, hurtling through the air towards me and away, everywhere I can see.

Water spreads around the boy, the two images blending…the boy is drowning in a sea of blood, stuck inside the mirror… and his face morphs into the marred one of the girl I so need to remember.

Then both images disappear and I'm left only with my own horrified reflection in the glassy surface.

My hands slip, and meet cool water. A shattering sound echoes as I break the surface. As the rest of my body becomes submerged in the pool's innocuous depths, a thought occurs to me.

_I don't know how to swim._


	7. With Eyes Wide Open

**Yukina**

**Chapter 7: With Eyes Wide Open**

I don't know how to swim...and I don't even care. My psyche keeps replaying images of a faceless, horribly disfigured body trapped in a mirror. On the flip side, trying to break through, is the little boy…

The little boy who is me. The little boy who grew up with no mind. The little boy who grew up with no memories.

The little boy pounding on the glass and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming his lungs out and the corpse is opening its bloody eyes and crying and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming and blasting in my eardrums and my head is pounding and I can't think and I can't breathe and my eyes are wide and unseeing.

There is something I want to remember...something I _need_ to recall...

And I can't see it.

Why can't I see it?

I exhale. A long stream of tiny bubbles issues from my partly opened mouth. I watch them float gently upwards, and reach the clear surface.

My head hurts. My ears hurt.

My eyes droop. If this is the end...if this is it... But it just can't be! I haven't even started to remember! I can't die! Not yet! Not until…I see _her_ again. Not until I remember who she is...

An alien emotion rises in my chest. I want someone to reach out to me. I want someone to wrap their arms around me and tell me everything is ok. I want someone to care about me. I want someone there.

Something collides with the pond's serene surface, destroying the calm and churning the lifeless buoyancy around me. White bubbles cascade around me. I let my eyes close and my body go slack.

I know I should be trying harder. I know there is something I _must_ do before I go, but I'm so tired.

I feel dizzy...

My eyes…they hurt.

An arm wraps around me and I open an eye. I can't breathe. I see red.

But then the red...clears. The water pushes it away and I see an eye.

One beautiful, clear, green eye, staring at me. The redness swirls around the green, framing it.

As my real eye drops closed the image imprinted on my mind's eye is not green and red.

It's red and blue.

* * *

"Hiei!"

Hn…?

"Hiei! Hiei please!" There is a pressure on my abdomen, and liquid gushes from my parted lips. I cannot open my eyes.

_"HIEI!"_ I am not stupid. I know that voice belongs to—

_Wha…!_

A pair of lips closes over mine, blowing air into my lungs. I sit straight up, instinctively pushing Kurama off of me. I cough up dry air…devoid of any liquid, weirdly enough.

That was uncomfortable.

I blink a few times and focus on Kurama. He is smiling.

I grab the back of his hair, drawing his face closer to mine.

I want to know now. I need to know now. I need to know _everything_.

Right now.

I practically hiss out the single syllable I can before my voice fails me. "Tell—" I demand scathingly, and then I start coughing again. I look down and squeeze my eyes shut. My grip loosens. Kurama grabs my shoulders and presses his forehead to mine.

"Ok…it's ok, Hiei. Everything will be alright…I'm here…it's ok." He moves one of his arms off my shoulder to my back, where he starts rubbing in small, counterclockwise circles.

_I want someone to wrap their arms around me and tell me everything's ok._

But now I realize, with disappointment—and a pang of guilt—weighing down in the pit of my stomach like a thousand stones, that this is _not_ what I want. I do not need Kurama. He is not the one I need to be there. I want him to be, but he just isn't. I…like this feeling, it feels _good_, but it's—

It's not the one thing I so desperately need. It's not the thing that is missing. It's not the reassurance I have to have before I die. It's not the reason I did not want to drown. It's not the thing that so craftily evades my minds grasp. And it's not the one thing they are hiding.

The hidden secret does not lie in Kurama's embrace.

Kurama is _not_ the one I need.

Kurama is not the one I want to wrap his arms around me and tell me everything is ok. Kurama is not the one who I need to care about me. Kurama is not the one who needs to be there...to be the one to know I'm there.

And I can't see it. My eyes hurt too much. I can't force them open.

I can't see the one I need. I can't see the one who hides from me. It's staring me right in the face, but I'm too blind to see with my eyes squeezed shut tight.

I can't see...not until my eyes open.

I can feel myself push Kurama away, ignoring the look of hurt that has manifested itself on his face. My eyes droop, as if drugged, and I move my hand up to my forehead in a gesture of exasperation.

"Kurama…?"

"Hiei…" This he half-mumbles, looking away from me. He may regret getting so close to me. It put him within striking range. Now all I need to do is say one little phrase to shatter his carefully constructed life.

"I need you to tell me something."

He frowns, and his eyes go blank. He is a master of masking what he feels so that even I cannot see. He is hiding something, guarding it very carefully. But he is afraid he might slip. Afraid he might tell me what I should not know. What I _should_ be able to figure out. What my mind does everything it can to make me remember.

"Yes?"I can tell he is going to be choosing his words _very_ carefully. The slightest thing could give him away, even though he is well aware that I am scrutinizing his every syllable.

"I want you to tell me everything."

He says nothing, waiting for me to continue, to elaborate.

"What are you hiding from me?" Straight up, blatant questioning. It's probably the only approach that will work.

But he's doesn't answer. He is just staring at me.

What will I do if he says no?

What will I do if can't find out?

"Ok…alright."

Now it is my turn to stare. He said ok? Ok?

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, simultaneously opening his mouth and his eyes, unleashing an unyielding flow of words. The pieces of a puzzle I have not even half-constructed.

"Hiei. First you must understand that I cannot possibly educate you in all the ways of the world we live in. I can only tell you about _yourself._ If you are able to understand this, I can begin."

I nod mutely. This is it!

"You...are a demon. But not just any ordinary demon...you are a crossbreed of fire-demon and Koorime. You are know to most only as the infamous 'Forbidden Child.' The bastard child of Hina, the ice apparition, who, I am sorry to say, died years ago.

"You have never been accepted or loved. You have lived centuries trusting no one, associating only with criminals in short-lived alliances. Because of this, I cannot tell you who you truly are. There are things I do not know, and now never will.

"Recently you took it upon yourself to enlist the help of myself and another demon, Gouki, in stealing three treasured items from a place known as Reikai. You succeeded, but your plan was foiled by Yusuke, whom you have met. You and I escaped death or eternal imprisonment on the condition that we would join Yusuke in his quest as a spirit detective, helping him to destroy evil. Gouki was killed. We are still on probation, though you are probably free from all prior duties in light of new circumstances.

"Since we joined Yusuke, the Spirit Detective, we have been through many, _many_ obstacles together. We've fought some of the most powerful demons imaginable, and you have shown great affection towards those you claim you could not care less for. I think you may have guessed, I am one of them... We were a bit...closer than the others.

"Then, a few months ago you...you hit your head. You were—I mean, we found you on the rocks at the bottom of a sheer cliff. We thought you wouldn't make it. You split your skull open. You were a mess. There was blood everywhere...that cliff was over a hundred feet high. There aren't many _demons_ who could have survived that fall.

"But you did. And Genkai healed you. She's an old warrior who cares for this temple and she is the one who has trained Yusuke. She is also very powerful, and possesses healing energy, to which you owe your life. She was able to recover your memories of the building blocks...basic functioning, if you will. Things like speech, motor skills, and ageneral knowledge of the things around you. You know what water is, and fire, and houses and trees and humans and demons. Unfortunately, _your_ memories that are specific only to _you _could not be recovered, partially because of your Jagan eye.

"Your Jagan is a mystical third eye which you had implanted in your forehead to—Which you had implanted in your forehead. It gives you the gift of telepathy, along with greater life force and battle energy. I do not know the full extent of your Jagan's power, since you were never one for explaining things, and Jagan eyes are very, _very _rare. It is said that the pain one must go through to obtain a Jagan is so excruciating that it kills most who attempt to possess one.

"The Jagan shielded many of the things your mind had built protective barriers against. Your deepest, darkest secrets will be forever safe and unknown.

"And...however sorry I am to say this...in some cases, it is..._better_ that you are left in the dark. I _am_ sorry Hiei. But there are some things that _are_ known...that I cannot tell you.

"There are things that must remain lost...

"Things better left unknown."

He stares at me apologetically, looking like he is going to cry. I stare right back, trying to absorb everything that I have just been told.

These are the pieces of my lost soul. This is _my life..._

But then there is still the unsatisfied ache...still the yearning...

Still the desire to know the things I will never know. The things I cannot see...the things only I can see...what I can only see...

With my eyes wide open.


	8. Her Name

**Yukina**

**Chapter 8: Her Name**

It's snowing again.

It snows a lot around here. I guess it has something to do with the temple being on a sort of mountainous terrain.

I've been training with Kurama these past few months. They all try to keep me busy. That way, I won't have any time to stop and think.

To stop and remember.

I relearned all the things they wanted me to. I was in a coma for a few months—enough to get them all scared that I was asleep for good. I know how to run and jump and fight and tell everyone apart. I know about all the things we have ever been through together. And they think I don't notice that there are pieces missing.

I know there are missing pieces. I know because when they tell me a story sometimes the fool or Yusuke will start to say something and then someone will kick them and mutter a 'shut up.' Then they'll get this sad expression on their face, say 'nevermind,' and move on.

And whenever I ask Kurama what's missing, he won't tell me. All he'll say is that some things aren't worth knowing.

Even though I think they are.

I think they are because every time I look into a mirror I see a face that's not my own. It's only there for a moment, but it's there all the same. It's haunting, how sometimes she'll be happy and sometimes she won't. Sometimes one of her eyes will be split open and bleeding, tears trickling down her cheek from the other eye.

But the worst part of all...is I don't know who she is.

I've not seen her around anywhere. No one says her name. They've mentioned unfamiliar names to me, but the names have always been accompanied by explanations. None of the faceless people have fit her description. Yet.

None of them are the ghost that wanders through my dreams and my waking hours.

I feel like it should be obvious. It should be staring me right in the face. The answer should beright in front of me.

But it isn't.

It is like an impenetrable wall. Like a glass I can see her through but never touch.

And my mind _wants_ me to know. It tries to help me, it tries to let me see her in my dreams. It tries to tell me, through the other side of the mirror. The side with the child that is me trapped in it, screaming and pounding on the glass to get out.

And I want to let him out.

I want to free him so his voice can tell me what I so want to remember.

"Hey, Hiei," a voice thick with lassitude says from behind me, effectively cutting off my train of thought. It's Yusuke, and he probably just got up. He's been here for the past week, starting another six-month-long training session with Genkai.

"Hn," I mutter. It's a habit that I've always had, or so I've been told. I say little.

"What's up?" He sits down beside me, one leg dangling off the porch I have been sitting on for the past hour. He yawns, stretching his arms above his head, and leans over, dropping his hands unceremoniously into his lap. He looks like a gorilla.

A thought occurs. Yusuke is far more likely than Kurama to tell me what is missing. He is not completely stupid, like the oaf, so he would get all the facts straight, but he is absent-minded enough in his drugged, half-awake state to tell me anything I want to know without realizing it. He's harder to get at than Kurama is, usually, since the youko is always dropping in to 'check up' on me. But while he's here, why not...

"I was thinking." I have to be blunt. If I twist around everything I say he'll get confused, then suspicious, and then clam up and refuse to talk.

"Yeah?" Another yawn. Up go the arms.

"There's this girl I used to know. I don't know what happened to her though." That's good start. Pretty general, it probably sounds like I am just—as unlikely as it would seem were Yusuke fully awake—making conversation.

"Really? What was her name?" He is rubbing his right eye. He is waking up.

"I can't remember. She was very pretty. She had red eyes, like mine, and long blue-green hair. She couldn't cry real tears, either." I only know that last part because whenever I see her crying, the tears roll down her cheeks and transform into beautiful, round jewels which hit the floor with a soundless 'clack.'

"Oh." Another yawn. A pause. "I know who you're talkin' 'bout." He rubs the sleep out of the other eye now. I only have a few more minutes before he's awake enough to realize that he is on the verge of telling me something I have been left in the dark about since I begun my life anew.

"What was her name?" I can't sound too eager, but it's so hard. Keep pretty much on the only casually interested, offhand side.

"It was..." I can't help myself. I lean closer to the boy, not wanting to miss the name that could bring everything rushing back.

"Yuki—" But then Yusuke's eyes go wide. So wide that the whites are showing.

"What?" I practically snap. _So close!_

"Oh go— Forget it! Forget I ever said that!" He practically vaults away from me, low to the ground, skidding down the hall. I can hear the irregular thumps of his socked feet on the slippery floorboards—Kurama and I had to wax them yesterday.

I sigh, and gaze out at the falling snow. So close…_so_ close. I shouldn't have leaned in. But I couldn't help it! I was afraid he'd slur his words or something, and then the chance would slip away from me...just like it did anyway.

The snow is falling in big, powdery puffs that are sticking.

I sigh and slump over.

The snow...

Wait.

I sit up.

Snow...

Yuki...

And I can see her. She is standing by the trees with her back to me.

Then she turns around, happy.

And she winks.

And the mirror shatters. The little boy falls out, screaming and screaming and screaming and bleeding and yelling a name at me in his forlorn, childlike voice.

_YUKINAAAAAAAAAA!_

I freeze. A million images burst into my mind, making me stagger backward and fall into the snow. When did I even get up...?

_Yukina playing with birds. _

_Yukina looking sad, flanked by two cruel-looking men._

_Yukina grabbing my arm to stop me from killing someone._

_Yukina handing me a beautiful, round gem._

_Yukina looking over her shoulder to smile at me._

_Yukina scared, as a monstrous thing grabs her and hauls her into the woods, cackling insanely._

_Yukina crying and bleeding, staring at me and hoping I can save her as she falls towards a sea of white frothy foam._

_One of her eyes is gone, split wide open._

_Hoping I can save her…_

Yukina...

My...my...

_"An eye for an eye...and a sister...for a sister..."_

The thing cackles. Evil laughter fills the crevices of my skull, pounding in my eardrums and making my blood run cold.

My sister.

_"NO! NONONONOOOOO!"_

I clutch madly at my hair, my eyes, my neck, tears streaming from my eyes to fall into the snow with soft, unsatisfying thumps as they turn into jewels.

If only I could have once cried, I would have seen who she was in an instant...

I failed my sister. I couldn't rescue her when it mattered most. I couldn't save her.

I stood by until it was too late to catch her.

I _let_ my _sister_ die.

_I let her **die**._

I stand up—still screaming—grabbing at my upper arms, ripping at the cloth and drawing blood from my abused arms.

_YUKINA!_

I run full-tilt to nowhere, and even though my heart has forgotten, my legs remember where to go.


	9. The Edge

**Yukina**

**Chapter 9: The Edge**

Branches scrape against my shoulders as I hurtle through the woods. My blood leaves a sickening trail of crimson in my wake, marking my trail of destruction. I lost my katana somewhere back there. I think I was trying to hack trees and other wildlife to pieces...I must've ended up breaking the damn thing. It's probably lying about a half-mile back.

There was a time when I cared about my katana. Before I forgot everything.

Before I allowed myself to forget _her_.

I can never abandon my sister again, and I won't. She...she needs me. I've always protected her, even when she didn't know it. It...

It's not fair.

I trip and fall to the dry, cracked earth. A gash rips open on my right cheek as a thorny bush scrapes against me, shredding parts of my clothing.

But I don't care. I pick myself up and stagger on. I am weak. I am pitiful. I have run too hard, too fast, too far, ripping apart everything I can. I'll soon have to face the reality that I'm drained. I have no energy left in me.

How could one mistake change everything? I snatched her away from death so many times before...how could it be that the one instant I am too slow...she could be taken from me? It's not fair!

I have to will myself to keep going.

Because I'm not there yet.

Hold on Yukina...I'm coming.

I grip a tree to my right and lean against it, panting. This is pathetic. I am supposed to be strong. I can't let myself be defeated by the fatigue that is blurring the edges of my vision.

But it's becoming excruciatingly obvious that my grip is slipping. My hands slide off the tree to fall limply at my sides. I feel my knees weaken, and my legs give way. I'm...falling...

* * *

Damn. I was out before I even hit the ground.

I get up.

I have to keep going.

I look around, my eyes darting around the foliage. I am thankful no lower class demon came to eat me while I was asleep. That's possibly the most humiliating death I can think of.

My death won't be in vain.

I refuse to be melodramatic and die for a _cause_, because I don't want to die for a stupid cause. What cause could be worth _my life_? I want to die for a _reason_. It's different.

Because I have the most perfect reason in the world.

I regained some energy in the time I was asleep. It's easier to run. The branches don't catch as much. I'm going to get there. Soon.

* * *

I break out of the trees' cover and gasp.

This is where she died. I know it the way even humans can sometimes sense things.

And I can see her. She's standing right there, by the cliff edge. She looks sad. Both her eyes are whole, but she's crying.

But those tears are not the crystalline gems I have seen rolling down her pale cheeks before. No. This time very liquid, very red, thick streams of...something are running down her face, opening cuts and burning her fair skin everywhere they touch.

My dead sister is crying acid tears of blood.

But that's not all. Her kimono is shredded, and I can see the wounds that haunt my most terrifying nightmares reappearing to mar my sister's body. The hole in her chest. The bruise on her neck. They all return...one by one with every step I take nearer to her.

To death.

And she stands there and cries and cries. And whispers something.

I cannot hear her no matter how I strain my ears. She is mute. She cannot speak and yet needs desperately to tell me something.

But I just can't make out the single syllable she keeps repeating. It's just one word...a simple message that could be the deciding factor in the most monumental decision I will ever make.

I take another step.

I reach out to touch my sister's cheek. Right below her eye, to wipe away her tears.

And my mouth opens wide in a soundless scream as that same eye splits open above my outstretched fingertips, pouring cascades of ice-cold blood onto my hand and searing pain up my arm and sweeping through my whole body, paralyzing me.

I stare in horror at my crying sister, her tears mingling with her own dead blood flowing out of her ruptured eye. It's the last wound. The final warning as I touch my lone relation, one step away from being with her forever.

As my eyes lock with hers, her lips still form the word I am too blind to see.

And my hand falls through her. She disappears, leaving me to fall forward, looking down to the dizzying drop below as a scene from my past replays before my wide-open eyes.

Her death. She falls and hits the rocks and the water turns red and swallows me up and a mirror shatters and broken pieces of glass destroy my world and a bloody crying child falls down to—

"HIEI!" Someone grabs my shoulder and violently yanks me around, away from the salty scent and my sister. The force of my one-eighty pitches me over and I fall over on top of someone bigger than me, stunned. I am no fool. I know the only one who would have the audacity to stop me is—

"Kurama."

"Hiei, what are you_ doing_?" I glare at him and push myself up, scrambling a few feet backwards. He's keeping me away from the one person who means the most. That's was he was doing all along. And she's the one I would die for. Not him. She's the one I _will_ die for.

I look down at my hand. There is blood on it. _Her_ blood. Because she's what my mind makes her. She's real.

I wipe off the red smears on my pants, where they camouflage with the stains made by my own blood.

"Nothing. None of your business."

He too, stands up. I can see his hurt expression morphing into anger before my eyes. His eyes are smouldering with angry green flames. He has so much to say and no words to say them with.

He stares at me for a few long moments and takes quick strides forward, towards me. I stare right back. Nothing is said but everything is understood. Still...I can think of one simple word that clearly surmises all of his thoughts and desires as he grabs me up off the ground and crushes me to his chest. He still smells flowery, he always will.

LIVE.

He wants me to live.

He holds me to him like he's clutching at water that will quickly slip away from him no matter how tightly he holds on. Just like my memories were, unreachable, unattainable. I shove him away.

"You already know," I hiss at him, knowing that I am right.

He knows _exactly_ what I was about to do before he barged in.

He looks at me sadly, a forlorn expression painted onto his pretty face.

And for a second _it_ happens again, just like it sometimes does.

His face turns into hers. Bleeding and crying, hoping I can save her, just like the day she died. And her hope was killed when she was.

She is mouthing the message I can't understand...a desperate plea from beyond the grave that I am too deaf to hear.

Too blind to see.

And then she's gone, and her bloody tears turn into Kurama's ordinary, transparent ones. Regular, tragic tears that roll down his face and fall to the cracked earth to be slowly absorbed into the thirsty soil.

"I know," he whispers, more tears brimming in his large, wide eyes. I say nothing.

"Hiei, please...don't. She...she wouldn't—" His voice cracks, and he cuts himself off, maybe not trusting his voice.

I turn away to face the ocean. Its waves lap against the rock face so far below, as if inviting me into their depths.

"You're wrong." It's barely a whisper, but I know he hears me.

There is a long silence, and then—

"No, Hiei...no. You are. She would never want this. She would want you happy. She found you. She found her brother. I know she would want her brother to be happy. I know she would want _Hiei_ to be happy."

And he's right. She did know she was my sister. She knew for a moment, because that thing told her.

_"An eye for an eye, and a sister...for a sister."_

She died knowing it was her brother who failed her...

And she would want me with her. I want me with her. I owe it to her...my only family.

"She wants to be with me." I don't know when I started crying, but I know I am, because I can hear the soft thumps of small jewels hitting hard ground.

"No. She wants to see you happy, whether she can be a part of your happiness or not. I know that's what she would want." I whirl around to face him, startled that he is barely three feet away.

"You don't know that! You don't know that at all! And what if I could be happy with her! What if it _is_ possible? You think you know so much when you know _nothing!_ She was _my_ sister and I want to be with her _as her brother_ and I _know_ she wants the same! We are twins! I've protected her for so long, I have to stay beside her! ...I...I can't fail again."

"She—"

"And stop saying that! _She_ has a name! _She_ has a name that could have saved all my memoies, but _you_ wouldn't say it! She would have told me whatever it took to save my memories! But _you!_ You obviously don't care about me at all! She cared about everyone, she would have helped me. I want to be with my sister!"

"Hiei, she—"

"Why won't you listen to me? Say her name! Say it! Because now I know it! Her name is _Yukina_! Yukina—Yukina—Yukina—Yukina—Yukina—Yukina—Yukina—"

And every time I say her name another image of her passes before my eyes. They smash into my subconscious with ground-shaking force, pounding inside of my head, every picture being seen at once, yet separately.

"Yukina—Yukina—Yukina—YUKINA—YUKINA—YUKINA—YUKI—"

My screams are muffled when Kurama once again digs his hands into my back and shoves me against him. I struggle, but he hold me fast, whispering to me.

"No, Hiei. No... That isn't true. You've convinced youself of something you must know deep down Yukina would _never_ want. You _can't_ be happy with her where she is now."

He pauses and chokes back what sounds like a sob.

"And you know what! I don't even _care_ what you think, because I'm not letting you go!"

I stiffen. I can see with shocking clarity what was being shoved in my face all along.

I can see _him._

I can see Kurama.

Now I can see Kurama smiling, Kurama helping me practice an attack I had to re-learn, Kurama whipping out a rose from his hair, Kurama taking my hand to help me up when I was so confused.

He was there all along. And I never dreamed there could be someone else who could care as much as my sister...someone I could care about as much.

And now I can see something else. I can see him hugging me, holding my hand when I needed him there. Images created long before my sister's death. Images I had locked away for so long, even after I had accepted Kurama's former friendship.

He has buried his head into my shoulder, and I can feel the vibrations his words make through the fabric.

"No...no...no... I won't let you go."

I gently push him away from me so I can look him in the eyes.

"I'm..." A black, solid tear falls to the ground below me, followed by a wet one from Kurama. The black clatters to the ground and the clear falls directly on top of it, dousing it in kindness, in love.

And before my eyes, the black tear gem—mine, the tear of hate and hurt—turns white and pure.

I tear my eyes away from the tiny, shining sphere and direct them at Kurama's very gem-like green eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Because I have the most perfect reason to live in the world.

His eyes fill with tears that splash down and pool around the single white crystal, as if drawn to it. Each tear makes the tiny glimmering stone on the ground whiter until it seems like it is glowing.

And as I lean in to Kurama's warm embrace and feel his tears mingling with mine, I see something.

I can finally see in stunning relief what Yukina was trying to tell me.

I see her for the last time, her smiling lips forming a word as I close my eyes and lean up towards Kurama.

LIVE.

* * *

Well, it has been a beautiful, lovely experience for me to write this. And try to rewrite it. And then forget about attempting to rewriting it. And then scrap that rewrite after neglecting it for a year and re-rewrite it. And then read it one day when I was incredibly bored, become aghast at the multitudinous plethora of mistakes, and re-edit. Well, it's finally done and polished, and thank you a million, million times to everyone who said nice things about this story. I'm reluctant to have to finally say goodbye, but all things must come to an end...so thank you all again, and I hope to hear from you if it turns out this story refuses to die... 


	10. The Double

Surprise!

Are you happy to hear from me again? Good, I knew you would be. You may not be so happy to read the actual contents of this update though...

Oh no, don't worry! I won't delete it or anything horrible like that! (I'd have to be a fool, after putting off so much other crap to finish this...) This is the ending of _Yukina_, my (sniffle) pride and joy. Ok, so I'm going a bit overboard. Oh well. Anyway, prepare for the TWIST ENDING of your life! The dangling bits of this story are at long last tied up (after, holy hell, over a year). I strongly encourage you all, especially you guys who read the original, who I lurve, by the way, to re-read the story before reading this chapter. And you know, tossing in a few comments here and there wouldn't hurt... (smile wink nudge).

**Yukina**

**Chapter 10: The Double**

I turn away from him, smile, and vanish.

But this time, it's for good.

I won't come back to haunt his dreams, to give him hints, to make him remember.

He can be happy as happy as Hiei can be now just as he is.

A tear rolls down my cheek, transforming, predictably, halfway through its journey into a perfect, round tear gem.

I lift my hand from my side to catch it in my palm, and start as I gaze at the first pearl I have ever cried that is a sorrow-filled black. A smile touches the corners of my lips as I think of Hiei's white pearl, and how completely the color switch was made in his tears and mine.

It seems we who harbor dark and horrible secrets in our minds are cursed to have them reveal themselves in their own little ways.

Hiei's secrets were in his own mind, mysteries even to himself. Now that they have been rediscovered and he can start learning to make peace with them, his sadness will be pure and simple.

He will only cry for that which others can understand.

I rest my eyes on the pearl lying on my flat, open palm.

These hands once were soft and warm. Once they could have held my brother, my twin, my protector.

But I knew Hiei as none of these things until I was ripped from him.

I had wanted so badly for him to catch me. I had hoped to, for one moment in my life, hold my brother's hands in mine and feel our connection.

But I felt the icy impact of water before a warm embrace.

As I left him I saw his failed attempt to save me. I cried and screamed when I thought he might have died.

But I felt a guilty, awful glimmer of hope.

He might have died.

He might have followed me.

I stayed at his bedside all those months. Those long, long months I half-hoped he would wake, and half-hoped he would leave them for good.

And then his eyes opened.

And he remembered nothing.

My heart broke.

I died again that day.

But now I see him encircled in a bittersweet happiness he could not have with me. We have no warm hands to hold.

Another tear falls from between my closed eyelashes, but this one I let drop off into nothingness.

Hiei was almost mine, but I pushed him away. I pushed him into the embrace of a lie.

But the lie is not his, and so long as some things are forever unknown to him, he will be at peace, finally.

I stare at Kurama's retreating back, as he leads Hiei away from me. Hiei will never see me again on this earth, but I can still savor these last precious moments.

Kurama.

He can make Hiei happy, and I know he will try his best. I know he did what he did for Hiei, and Hiei alone.

But did I have to pay such a price?

Was my brother's happiness doomed to only ever be incomplete?

I was with him that day...the day he created that _thing..._

"_Yukina, could I speak with you for a moment?" he asked politely._

_It was an innocuous request, and she accepted. "Of course." She nodded to him, then turned to bow to the old woman sitting beside her, "Please excuse me," she murmured, and hurried outside, following the redhead._

_He led her around the back of the temple, and motioned for her to enter the forest. She trusted him, even though the woods frightened her._

_They walked for some time, until they reached a small grove._

_She stared, open-mouthed, at the hideous colossus before her. It looked like a very ugly demon, but the practical side of her assured the alarmed part that it was only a massive amalgamation of vines intertwining. It only _looked _like a monster._

"_Don't be afraid," he said gently, "It is not alive, it won't hurt you."_

_She whispered, "What is it?"_

_He smiled. "Something I need your help with…"_

He had wanted to fuse life, his green vines and plants, with my dead, cold ice magic. It had created a fearsome, strange breed of monster. He told me it was to protect someone he cared about.

He wasn't lying about that.

He had told me, though, that it wouldn't hurt me. And that was his terrible lie.

He set that thing on me to remove me from the picture.

In a twisted way, Kurama was right all along.

Hiei could never inform me of the bond we shared, and the secret ate him alive. It prevented him from being happy with Kurama, whose fondest wish was to see my brother smile.

But he could not smile. Not until he had my approval...and my silence.

The monster took care of both in an instant, revealing the secret and silencing me. I was no longer a threat, a liability, to Hiei's safety.

Kurama was brilliant.

Without a sister, Hiei had no weaknesses, other than his own grief.

But grief would never kill my twin. Though he believed himself weak for only trying his best to save me, in his heart he was always the strongest person I have ever known.

And so Kurama knew he could heal my twin's sadness, replacing a bond that could have been, and could have also been a danger to us both, with a bond that could be safely reciprocated.

So while I float above the mortal plain and watch my brother live beside a lie…he, at least, will have the best chance at happiness he could ever have had.

My twin will be content, trusting of his friend the youko, ever the sly fox…

So long as some things are left unknown.


End file.
